Joe Hisaishi – オーケストラストーリーズ となりのトトロ = My Neighbor Totoro (Orchestra Stories) (2xLP, Limited Edition)

Joe Hisaishi's Orchestra Stories: My Neighbor Totoro recasts music from Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 film in a form designed to bring orchestral sound to new listeners. First issued in 2003 and later made available on vinyl for the first time, it turns My Neighbor Totoro into a self-contained listening experience rather than a straight soundtrack reprise. That matters here: these are not simply familiar cues lifted from the film, but newly arranged versions that give the score a broader symphonic shape.

The album is built in two parts. One introduces the orchestra through clear, family-friendly narration by Shigesato Itoi, explaining instruments and their tone colours; the other presents the music as a narration-free suite performed by the New Japan Philharmonic. That structure makes the record unusually welcoming without feeling slight, and it also helps explain why pieces such as “The Village in May,” “The Path of the Wind,” and “Cat Bus” land so well outside the film itself.

For listeners who know Hisaishi mainly through the original Studio Ghibli soundtracks, this version offers a different angle: more overtly orchestral, more didactic in concept, and arranged apart from the earlier image album and soundtrack editions. This remastered vinyl edition also restores the project with new jacket artwork, commentary, and liner notes, giving a thoughtfully presented physical home to one of Hisaishi's more distinctive Totoro reinterpretations.

Features

• Newly remastered edition with new jacket, commentary, and liner notes
• First vinyl release of this orchestral Totoro program
• Black Vinyl

Genre: Soundtracks